NYSE Decomissions the Daily Program Trading Report

The New York Stock Exchang (NYSE) has decided to halt the disclosure of Goldman Sachs’ (GS) dominance in trading. The exchange announced that it will decommission the requirement to report program trading activity via the Daily Program Trading Report, which was previously approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission. What this report essentially does, or did rather, is post data from the New York Stock Exchange showing which firms were the most actively involved in program trading. The computerized trading programs are used primarily by institutional investors typically for large-volume trades. Unsurprisingly, the leader of these trades, and always topping the Daily Program Trading Report, would consistently be Goldman Sachs. Coincidence or not, you draw your own conclusions. One thing is obvious – for whatever reason Goldman has been able to somehow consistently and successfully capture the biggest chunk of the exchange’s trading program. Well, no more disclosure.

The New York Stock Exchange LLC (“NYSE”) will be decommissioning the requirement to report program trading activity via the Daily Program Trading Report (“DPTR”), which was previously approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “Commission”).1 The last trade date for which member organizations will be required to file the DPTR with the Exchange will be July 10, 2009 and therefore the last required date to submit the DPTR will be July 14, 2009.

In the 2007 rule filing, the Exchange proposed to eliminate DPTR. The 2007 filing noted that there was some duplication between the DPTR data and the audit trail information that member organizations provide to the Exchange via account-type indicators at the time that they submit program trades to the Exchange… [A]fter consulting with the SEC, the Exchange announced that it would delay implementation of the two redefined account type indicators, and pending such implementation, member organizations would be required to continue filing the DPTR with the Exchange. The current delayed implementation date of the redefined J and K account type indicators is June 30, 2009. Accordingly, the Exchange still requires member organizations to submit DPTR.

The Exchange has filed with the SEC to implement the decommissioning of the DPTRrequirement following the July 10, 2009 trade date. Accordingly, the last required submission of the DPTR will be on July 14, 2009, which is the second business day after the last trade date for which the DPTR is required.

2 Comments on NYSE Decomissions the Daily Program Trading Report

Editor — I’m with NYSE corporate communications and wanted to let you know that NYSE is not eliminating the weekly report; we’re just changing the source of the data to eliminate duplication.

The Information Memo you cite goes on to note:

The Exchange further notes that it will use the existing account type indicator data – which captures program trade information for those orders sent to and executed on the Exchange – to report to the Commission on a weekly basis the program trading statistics for portions of program trades executed on the Exchange. Accordingly, beginning on July 23, 2009, the Exchange will provide the Commission with its weekly statistics on program trading based on account type indicator data rather than DPTR data. Similarly, at the same time, the weekly statistics regarding program trades that the Exchange provides to media outlets will also be derived from account type indicator
data rather than the DPTR.